Paduak, Pterocarpus soyauxii, comes mainly from Mexico and is available in large logs. Because of this it's a reasonably priced wood. The photo above shows an unfinished piece of wood. You can see an orangish strip on the right half while the left half has oxidized to a more brownish color. Even when it oxidizes Paduak maintains its reddish hue.
	Here's the other side of the same board. I've wiped it with mineral spirits to simulate how it would look with a finish on it.
	This is the back of a dulcimer made of paduak. When I build instruments I always bookmatch the back. That means I saw the board into thin slabs and open them up such that the grain pattern on the left and right of the center line are mirror images of each other.
	Here's a detail of the bookmatching before final sanding and before the finish was applied. This also shows the center stripe inlay and the binding detail. The binding on this instrument consist of 7 very thin perfling lines of black/white/black/green/black/white/black with an outer binding of bocote.
	Here's that same dulcimer with a finish of "French Polished" lemon yellow shellac. Look at that grain pop out!
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